"You know, you think when you have
a really successful record, 'Wow, this is it. This is the pinnacle of success.'
But, actually, it's now," KT Tunstall said. "It's now, where I'm in a place
where I have a record deal where I can make good choices, and I call the shots,
and I can decide who I work with, and how I'm going to work, and when I'm going
to work.

"And that's the greatest gift,
really, is to make music, and go on tour when you want to, and be in touch with
your fans so that they're waiting for you to bring out the next thing."

Tunstall, the Scottish hitmaker
who burst onto the music scene in 2006 with the multiplatinum "Eye to the
Telescope," and hits "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" and "Suddenly I See," did
not expect to be in this position today. She was frustrated with touring, and didn't
envision creating new material - at least not for an album of her own.

But, while in California,
recharging, and working on film scores, she said the bug bit her. After a
series of albums where she veered away from pop music, Tunstall found herself
with a batch of "pretty muscular emotional pop songs."

Fans got a taste of the new music
with the June EP "Golden State," and the just-released "KIN."

Listen to "Maybe It's a Good
Thing," the first single from "KIN," below:

While there was nothing wrong with Tunstall's more recent efforts, there also wasn't material that really spoke to her artistry, or lent itself to her ideal fan experience.

"What I'd like to see is to kind
of reclaim some of the ground that I covered with that first record, in terms
of people really liking what I do," Tunstall said. "I know that there's many
people out there who would like this record. The difficult thing in the
landscape now is actually letting people know that you have a record out.
There's so much music traffic. It's quite hard to actually get through and let
people know. And so, I just want to shout loud, and I feel like I've got a
record with powerful songs on it.

"It's a good thing. It feels like
it's a positive record. It's emotional. It's very honest. It's very vulnerable.

"Again, harkening back to that
first record, it does feel like a kindred spirit to the first record. It's sort
of like it's taken three records to write my second album. (Laughs) But I've
become quite observational through the process of being a little bit scared to
be vulnerable with all those people - millions of people - staring at you and
expecting something from you. And that's gone now. So, I just feel I'm in a
very carefree place of making music I love again. And free of any sort of
shackles of expectation from anybody else."

Tunstall chatted about her new
album, her live show (she performs Sept. 15 in Toronto), and her California
dreaming.

Q: I've been looking at tour photos. I see you're quite the tweeter. What do you like about that way to
communicate with fans?

KT Tunstall: Well, it's just so new. I can hardly believe that, when my
first record came out in 2004 (U.K.), there was no YouTube. It's quite hard to
remember what it was like before people were able to see what you did and not
be there, or get hold of you on Twitter, or let you know how they felt about
the show.

I love that aspect of social media
- that I can have very open conversations directly with fans, which I never was
able to have before.

I think that Twitter really suits
my personality, where I'm quite a lateral thinker, and I'll just share whatever
thought is on my mind. It's not just about music. It's how people get to know
you a bit better.

Some people don't want that. It's
something I feel comfortable with, and it's certainly the way that I put on a
show. I really love the fact that there are records in the world where there is
a real kind of fantasy barrier between the audience and the unobtainable icon,
that is the artist. These are incredible acts and incredible shows.

But the thing that I really like
to talk about at my show is kind of breaking that barrier down and making for a
very open and very connected evening together, where it's really just like
hanging out. And I want you to feel like there's a lot of people in my living
room. ... And we're making a lot of noise. (Laughs)

So, for my music, it's actually
really, really great to have that really personal connection with fans. ... And I
love pictures of animals.

Q: Talking about your live show, then, I presume it's more
singer/songwriter, and not a lot of production?

KT Tunstall: It's a massive show (actually). There's only four people on
stage, but it sounds like there's eight. We've got electronics. The keyboard
player has about four different synthesizers that he's running with a laptop.
I've got my loop pedals; about four different guitars. The bass player plays a
MOOG synthesizer as well as a real electric bass, and he's got a really big,
lovely pedal sound setup.

For me, the live show, the last
record was a completely stripped back, bare bones folk record (2013's "Invisible
Empire // Crescent Moon"). And I toured most of that completely solo. With my
loops.

And this time, I think part of the
reason I thought I was going to pack in music for a while - at least, you know,
I thought I was going to take quite a few years hiatus from making records -
was because I wasn't enjoying touring very much. And that has always been the
backbone of what I loved about being a musician - was playing live.

I had thought my feelings for it
had gone off to boil, but, in fact, really, when I did a couple of
retrospective shows, we were playing a much more upbeat set. I realized that I
just have to have a physical experience when I play a show. I need to sweat, and
I need reciprocal energy. And it's very difficult for a crowd to do that
sitting down.

And so that was the key with this
record. The booking agents were like, "Well, your last shows weren't doing
bad." And I said, "Well, I'm not going to play." (Laughs) "I'm not going to
play if they're sitting down."

My perfect venue, because I do
have older fans, is to have kind of like a theater style with a balcony, so
that people can have a seat if they need one, but there's still that really
electric energy of people being able to dance, and people being able to move,
and having a blast while I'm doing a show.

Q: We chatted in 2007, and, at that point, everything was new and
exciting. And that was one of the things that you mentioned, was that
everything you were doing was for the live show - so you could go out and gig.
It must've been super-frustrating coming to the point where you had to retool
and weren't satisfied with the live show.

KT Tunstall: Yes, I mean, it was a really good show. It was very popular.
Folks really enjoyed it. And I definitely enjoyed sharing songs. But, it was
just draining me. I was finding it incredibly hard, kind of mentally and
physically, to do.

And it's kind of weird, because,
the show that I'm doing now, with a three-piece band, I am coming off stage
absolutely drenched every night. And it's like a Jane Fonda workout. But,
somehow, ... it replenishes me - and I find it revitalizes me. And I find it
feeds me. Whereas, the show before, it was very well behaved, and a very
earnest show. And I just found it wasn't really - it wasn't a balance of giving
and receiving, in terms of the energy in the room.

And it's absolutely not a
criticism of my fans, because they're brilliant, and they're always responsive,
but it's just the nature of playing to a seated theater.

It's not to say I'll never do
that, because I would love to do an orchestral gig of music, and there's
certainly times when I'm going to be playing to - there's a few dates on the
tour where I'll play to seated gigs in the U.K. It's just, when it's all the
time, it wasn't right for me as a musician.

KT Tunstall's "KIN"

Q: I heard "Golden State," and I was super-jazzed. Then I ordered "KIN,"
and I'm looking forward to receiving that. I really like the new sound. But, if
I'm understanding what you're saying, you sort of came into this (record
process) thinking, "I need to have a certain kind of sound to make my show
better."

KT Tunstall: Yeah.

Q: How easy a process was that - or how challenging a process was that?

KT Tunstall: Well, I didn't know how challenging it was going to be. ...

The songwriting basically starts
with a process. It wasn't really, it certainly wasn't me going, "OK, I want to
write an album that sounds like this," because I wasn't going to write an
album. I had gone through seven shades of $hit in the U.K., of my dad dying,
and my marriage breaking up, and that was all right in the middle of the last
record.

And so I literally just sold
everything I owned and moved to Venice Beach, in California. And started again.
And it was a really transformative move - and one I'm so grateful I made. ...

I discovered Venice Beach and fell
in love with it immediately, and just felt that here was a place where I could
actually, finally, find some balance between my work life and time for myself.
...

That was the first wonderful thing
about it. It was just finally this sanctuary where I could really happily just
not do anything - and that's just as important as doing stuff, when you do a
lot when you work.

Secondly, I had gone over ... and
learned film scoring. And I had done the film composers lab, the feature film
composers lab at the Sundance Film Institute, which was one of the most
extraordinary learning courses of my adult life. It was so - just so
reinvigorating to flex different creative muscles, and learn so much in such a
short space of time.

So, I was working on films. I did
a couple short films and also wrote songs for movies, and just really building
very positive relationships with the film industry.

And, as I was about a year into
living in Venice Beach - I listen to music in the car. That's where I most
enjoy listening to music is driving - and I was going to Topanga Canyon and
Laurel Canyon and driving along the PCH, and listening to Fleetwood Mac and Tom
Petty and Joni Mitchell and Neil Young. And it just got into my blood. And the
fact that all of this music was made where I was, I could completely relate to
why that was: The feeling that that place gives you, and the kind of wide ocean
vistas, and the beautiful mountains, and the kind of wildness of the hills.

And I just starting writing these
choruses. And my mind and body was, like, "Nooo! I don't want to do it. I want
to take a break! Leave me alone." And then, you know, the spirit won.

If it was folk music coming out,
I'd probably not be talking to you right now. But what came out, what was
coming out, were these really, pretty muscular emotional pop songs, of the kind
of power that I didn't feel (before). It just felt similar to the stuff that I
wrote on that first album. And I couldn't ignore that.